People in states with relatively few passport holders are more likely to vote for Republicans

Social and economic theorist Richard Florida has come up with a FASCINATING STUDY showing that states with smaller percentages of passport holders — which is to say, smaller percentages of people who travel outside the country — generally are more inclined to vote for Republicans.

Florida notes that populations of low-passport states are less sociologically diverse, less educated, have lower incomes, are more likely to have voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, and are less happy than folks in high-passport states.

Florida concludes:

“There are stark cultural differences between places where international travel is common and those where it’s not, and we can see them playing out in the cultural and political strife that has been riving the country over the past decades.”

To this I would add: No wonder there’s so much xenophobia in red states.